The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

KIRKUS REVIEW

A classy entertainment from the British virtuoso (Ordinary Thunderstorms, 2010, etc.)—a period caper that evolves into an adventure story of wartime counter-espionage.

A handsome young English actor has a sexual problem: He cannot ejaculate. Which is why Lysander Rief is in Vienna in the summer of 1913: He’s a patient of an English psychoanalyst with a crackpot theory, Parallelism. Lysander needs his problem cleared up before he marries his fiancée, the lovely leading lady Blanche Blondel. Soon enough, Lysander discovers that underneath Vienna’s decorum runs a “river of sex.” A fellow patient, Hettie Bull, seduces him, and to his delight Lysander performs well; hey, the theory works! Lysander enjoys trysts with the volatile Hettie, an English sculptor, until one day, to his astonishment, he is arrested on rape charges; Hettie has betrayed him to her menacing common-law husband. Military attachés at the British embassy bail him out, sheltering him and devising his escape. The actor improvises a disguise to leave Vienna which so impresses the attachés that a year later, now the Great War has begun, they recruit him to track down a high-placed traitor in the British war machine. Subterfuge has been a recurrent theme in Boyd’s work. Lysander’s mission entails a dangerous visit to the front, followed by a tricky confrontation with the traitor’s German contact in Geneva. Even in another outrageous disguise, Lysander is almost shot dead by another British agent due to a misunderstanding. Back in London, the intrigue becomes even denser. Boyd parodies the convolutions of the genre but retains its suspense, while that river of sex flows like the Thames. A contrite Hettie re-appears. Lysander enjoys himself with her before finding true fulfillment with Blanche, who has survived a Zeppelin attack, and dispatching the traitor with the help of his gay uncle (don’t tell the boss).

Boyd’s latest has the irresistible charm of a vintage car that’s still eminently roadworthy. And it’s great fun.

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